Cardinals pitcher Shelby Miller's low walk ratio helps fast start

Every Friday, Sporting News’ Ryan Fagan will take a deeper look at the players making on-the-field headlines—both good and bad—with the help of advanced baseball metrics. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been gathered from baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com, two thoroughly indispensible websites.

Shelby Miller, Cardinals

The 19th overall pick of the 2009 MLB draft, Miller has tantalized Cardinals fans with his potential as a top-of-the-rotation starter from the moment he was selected out of Brownwood (Texas) High. There were some ups-and-downs in the minors, but the 6-foot-3 righthander has excelled on the big-league stage. He came up last September and posted a 1.32 ERA in 13 2/3 innings (including one start), and cemented his spot in the rotation this spring. Even though he gave up four runs against the Mets on Wednesday—the first time all season he’d allowed more than three—he’s still among the league leaders with a 2.21 ERA, and he has 91 strikeouts (and just 62 hits allowed) in 81 1/3 innings.

The stat: 5.4 BB%

What BB% isn’t: Percentage of Pirates fans who think Bobby Bonilla was better than Barry Bonds back in the day.

What BB% is: Walk Percentage. This is a pretty straight-forward stat; it’s the percentage of batters faced that a pitcher walks. For a point of reference, the MLB average for pitchers in 2013 is 7.9 percent.

What this says about Miller: When compared to other big-league starters with a qualifying number of innings, Miller’s 5.4 BB% is solidly above-average. Excellent, even. It’s 22nd in the majors, and no player with a better BB% than Miller can match his strikeout rate of 10.07 K/9. Of that group of starters, only Seattle superstar Felix Hernandez is above a strikeout per inning (he’s at 9.4 K/9).

But the true importance of that number—the 5.4%—to Miller’s success this season becomes obvious when compared to his previous stops along his journey to St. Louis. Though blessed with a powerful right arm, Miller hasn’t always been able to throw strikes with much consistency. He never had Rick Ankiel- or Steve Blass-type issues, but he wasn’t Greg Maddux, either. In 2011, he had a 9.1 BB% at high-Class A Palm Beach and a 9.3 BB% at Class AA Springfield. In 2012, his 8.4 BB% was a significant factor in his 4.74 ERA and 1.376 WHIP at Class AAA Memphis.

When he arrived in the majors, though, Miller started throwing more strikes. He faced 54 batters for the Cardinals down the stretch last season and walked just four, a 7.4 BB%. This season, as a full-fledged member of the rotation from the get-go, Miller has as many starts (four) with zero walks as he does starts with multiple walks (four). His stuff—led by an outstanding fastball that sits in the 93-95 mph range—is so good that when he’s not giving opponents free runners on base, he has the ability to be a dominant pitcher.

Jose Fernandez, Marlins

This season hasn’t produced many bright spots for Marlins fans—they still exist after last winter’s sell-off, right?—but Fernandez has provided a beacon of hope. The righthander, who doesn’t turn 21 until late July, has a 3.17 ERA in a dozen starts this season, striking out 67 and allowing just 50 hits in 65 1/3 innings. He’s been especially good at home (1.55 ERA in five starts) and against the Mets (1.64 ERA in four starts, two at home and two at Citi Field in New York).

The stat: 94.7 vFA

What vFA isn’t: Very Fishy Action for a fishing lure

What vFA is: Fastball Velocity, as determined by PITCHf/x, a pitch tracking system created by Sportvision that’s in every MLB stadium. This represents the average velocity of a pitcher’s four-seam fastball, not the peak velocity.

What this says about Fernandez: He throws the baseball hard. Duh, right? Here’s a little context: only three players in the majors—Stephen Strasburg (95.5), Jeff Samardzija (95.0) and Matt Harvey (95.0)—have a higher vFA than the Marlins’ youngster. More context: the average pitcher in the majors in 2013 has a vFA of 91.6. Obviously, it takes more than raw velocity—and, Fernandez’s fastest pitch registered at 98.9 mph, by the way—to be successful in the major leagues, though.

Fernandez has generally done a good job throwing strikes. He has yet to walk more than three batters in a game, and against the Dodgers on May 10, 66 of his 86 pitches went for strikes. The Marlins have been careful with Fernandez’s pitch counts, too. He’s thrown more than 87 pitches just twice in his 12 starts, and that’s not because of any on-the-mound struggles. Three times already this season, he’s left a game with fewer than 90 pitches while carrying a shutout.

Hyun-jin Ryu, Dodgers

The Dodgers paid a $25.7 million posting fee in November 2012 for Ryu, who pitched for the Hanwha Eagles of the Korean Baseball Organization from 2006-12, and gave the lefthander a six-year, $36 million deal a month later. That’s a lot of money, but Ryu pitched well enough in spring training (3.29 ERA in 27 1/3 innings) to earn a spot in the Dodgers’ rotation from the beginning of the season. In 13 starts, Ryu has been exceptional—he’s fashioned a 2.85 ERA and 1.184 WHIP, to go with a 6-2 record.

The stat: 1.92 wSL/C

What wSL/C isn’t: Waiting for a Second Life Convention

What wSL/C is: For every 100 sliders a pitcher throws (as determined by PITCHf/x, a pitch tracking system created by Sportvision that’s in every MLB stadium), how many runs above average does he save? Basically, it measures how a pitcher fares when throwing a slider (there are stats for four-seam fastballs, curveballs, changeups, etc.). A number of zero is average, with positive numbers good and negative numbers bad. As Fangraphs notes in its advanced statistics glossary, the normal range falls between 1.5 and -1.5.

What this says about Ryu: His success with the slider ranks 13th in the majors among pitchers with a qualifying number of innings. That’s excellent, but not necessarily the one thing that sets him apart. What’s so impressive about what Ryu has done during his short time in the bigs is that every pitch has been very good for him.

The lefthander throws five pitches on a regular basis—four-seam fastball (29.5 percent of the time), a two-seam fastball (22.9 percent), a changeup (21.9 percent), a slider (14.2 percent) and a curveball (11.5 percent)—and all five are above average on the Pitch Value scale. In order, after his slider success: changeup (1.76), four-seam fastball (0.89), curveball (0.13) and two-seam fastball (0.13). There are no pitches in the mix that are necessarily dominant, but he has the confidence to throw any of these offerings, which makes it harder for hitters to guess at what’s coming in any given count.